


Snort Some Weed

by Prim_the_Amazing



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Cheerleaders, Football, GET YOUR HEAD IN THE GAME KEITH, Keith and Shiro are Siblings, Keith does Not Like being the center of attention, Lance LOVES IT, M/M, POV Alternating, POV Third Person, Present Tense, he also has a hard time focusing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-22
Updated: 2016-09-22
Packaged: 2018-08-12 23:24:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7953220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prim_the_Amazing/pseuds/Prim_the_Amazing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lance is just heading over to his car, the lingering glow of a good performance and their team winning yet again stretching his smile wide. Their school has a good team. Especially their quarterback, although Lance has to admit to that one grudgingly. There's something about Keith Kogane's too cool for school attitude that grates on him, even though they've scarcely traded more than two words. </p><p>Anyways, Lance is just heading over to his car, barely any people left (he's got a <em>routine</em>, okay, beauty takes time and effort) when he practically walks right into said earlier mentioned star quarterback Keith Kogane <em>vomiting</em>. In the <em>school parking lot</em>. Behind <em>Lance's car</em>. </p><p>"Uh," Lance says. </p><p>"Oh god," Keith says, looking up at him. And then he vomits on Lance's two hundred dollar shoes. </p>
            </blockquote>





	Snort Some Weed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [disarmingly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/disarmingly/gifts).



> Male Cheerleader!Lance and Football Player!Keith please please PLEASE.

The crowd is a sheer wall of noise, intoxicatingly overwhelming. As Lance is thrown spinning into the air with seemingly careless abandon by his team it peaks, and he can't make out any one single word, but they might as well all be saying ' _Lance, Lance, we're looking at you, LANCE_.' 

His face splitting grin is one hundred percent sincere. 

* * *

The crowd is a sheer wall of noise, nightmarishly overwhelming. As Keith walks out onto the field with the rest of his team it peaks, and he can't make out any one single word, but they might as well all be saying ' _Keith, Keith, we're looking at you, KEITH_.' 

He's grateful for his helmet so that no one can see that he's pale as a ghost, gritting his teeth, already sweating. 

The shrill sound of the referee's whistle cuts through the roar of the crowd, and he concentrates on tuning them out. _Get your head in the game_ , Shiro always said (and then snickered for some reason). He focuses on the ball. He focuses on his team and the enemy. He _moves_. 

It is an unfortunate fact that the better Keith performs, the louder and more frenzied the audience becomes. But the faster he wins, the faster he can get out of here. 

 _Damn_ extra credit. 

* * *

Lance is just heading over to his car, the lingering glow of a good performance and their team winning yet again stretching his smile wide. Their school has a good team. Especially their quarterback, although Lance has to admit to that one grudgingly. There's something about Keith Kogane's too cool for school attitude that grates on him, even though they've scarcely traded more than two words. 

Anyways, Lance is just heading over to his car, barely any people left (he's got a _routine_ , okay, beauty takes time and effort) when he practically walks right into said earlier mentioned star quarterback Keith Kogane _vomiting_. In the _school parking lot_. Behind _Lance's car_. 

"Uh," Lance says. 

"Oh god," Keith says, looking up at him. And then he vomits on Lance's two hundred dollar shoes. 

 

So, long story short, Lance is pissed and Keith Kogane is quite probably pissed as in _wasted_ , and also lying in the back seat of Lance's car. 

"I'm not drunk," Keith protests again, and Lance frowns at him by way of the mirror. 

"I thought I told you that you weren't allowed to put your head back in the car. Back out the window, Keith!" If Keith barfs in his car as well then his star quarterback status isn't going to save his ass again. Lance will _murder him himself_. 

"Do not drive me to the hospital." Lance is driving Keith to the hospital. 

"I'm not going to be the one who let the school's star quarterback OD!" 

"I'm not OD'ing! People vomit for reasons that don't have to do with drugs or alcohol!" 

"Oh, give it a rest. I know how the football team is, and you just near singlehandedly won a game, too." 

"What!" Keith blurts out, indignant. "I'm not-- I'm not like that, that's-- so rude--" 

"Oh, that's rich coming from you!" Lance interrupts Keith's _drunken_ stuttering. They may have scarcely traded more than two words before, but those scarcely more than two words may have been a bit snarky. Which was totally unwarranted! 

"Look, I'm serious, I don't need to go to the hospital." 

"Well, I'm going to take you there anyways. If you don't need to be there the doctors will turn you away after a five minute inspection, and if you do, well, then I'm a freaking hero, I guess!" 

"If I don't need to be there--which I don't!--then the doctors will turn me away after a five minute inspection, and then the next day the entire town will be whispering about how they saw Keith Kogane at the hospital reeking of vomit. It's bad enough that just you think I'm-- snorting weed or something--"

"Yeah, that's-- that's pretty hilariously wrong," Lance cuts in, although it helps convince Lance more than anything else Keith has said tonight that he might be telling the truth and is actually a straight laced buff nerd. 

"I've got enough attention on me as it is!" Keith finishes, ignoring him (Lance _hates_ that). 

"Enough attention!?" Lance burts out, and the two words put together like that makes his brow furrow in a way that's going to encourage premature wrinkling. He forces himself to stop as soon as he can. "There's no such thing! Are you messing with me? Oh, look at me, poor Keith, I've got sooo many fans--"

"I'm not--!" Keith starts to stutter again, the way he did when Lance accused him of being a pill popping jock. Which was maybe a bit rude in retrospect. "I don't _want_ attention." 

The statement rubs on Lance the wrong way, but he reminds himself of the way Hunk always runs last in gym class, behind everyone else, not because he's the slowest, but because he doesn't want to work out where the rest of the class can see him. Of the way Pidge wore nothing but their baggiest shirt for a month after they started wearing a binder, hoping just to slide the new development underneath everyone's radar and never ever talk about it. Of the way his little sister squeaks and hides whenever she's introduced to someone new. 

Not everyone's like him. It's hard to remember that, that not everyone's got a bottomless hole for attention in them. That they might _actively dislike_ it. It's so weird to think about. 

Lance is quiet, and so is Keith, waiting for his response. 

Lance drives straight past the exit to the hospital. 

Keith sighs, and Lance drives him home. 

* * *

"So," Shiro says, pouring out a bowl of cereal for Keith, "The head cheerleader?" 

Keith chokes on the orange juice he was drinking. "W-What?" 

Shiro grins in that playfully mean way he rarely gets to do any longer. Too many responsibilities. It makes Keith briefly happy to see it before the worry makes a return. He doesn't want Shiro to know that he had a... freak out, yesterday.  

"Lance McCLain, drove you home last night after your big game? I saw you through the window. The head cheerleader and the quarterback, I gotta' admit Keith, that's pretty stereotypical of you." 

Keith blinked, not getting it. (So his name was Lance.) "I don't get it." 

Shiro stared at him for a second, and then smiled fondly. "Yeah, I should've guessed so. Okay, so to be frank, are you dating Lance?" 

This time, Keith managed to choke on nothing but air and spit. 

"Or is it not official yet?" Shiro said with that teasing lilt to his voice. "Did you just go on the one date? Was it love at first cartwheel? Did he slowly woo you in between rehearsals and breaks? Did--" 

"We're not dating!" Keith burst out. "That doesn't make any sense, I barely know him!" 

"Aww," Shiro cooed. "You're blushing."

Keith chose to skip breakfast in favor of storming out of the kitchen and slamming the door behind him, muffling Shiro's laughter. He wasn't able to stop blushing for awhile. 

 

After the whole 'I'm going to assume you're on drugs and drive you to the hospital against your will, oh wait I changed my mind' thing, Keith is terribly conscious of Lance. He notices him when he goes into the cafeteria (but only for a short enough period to buy some food and then get the hell out of that crashing, roaring noise pit of a room). He notices that he's taking some of the same classes as him, even though before today he wouldn't have been able to put a name to his face for the life of him. 

Lance seems to randomly switch between 'hardworking achiever' and 'overly social airhead' in classes. One minute he'll be glaring a hole through his text book, clearly trying to etch the words into his memory forever, and the next he'll be texting someone with his phone in his lap, or he'll be staring out a window at a passing airplane like it's the most fascinating thing in the world. Maybe he's carefully considering the possibility of chem trails too. 

When Keith sees him in the hallways or the cafeteria he's usually with two students that stand out enough for Keith to have given them nicknames inside his head, Big Man and Gremlin. (Keith is very bad with names.) Gremlin is notable because they're young enough to be in middle school, but is here instead, in senior year. Also there had been that whole 'call them they' drama the year before, but Keith paid even less attention to that then he did most things. Big Man is notable because, well, he's big. In any crowd, he'll be the tallest one, easy enough to pick out in just a second. There was also that one time he got 'overexcited' in lab and built an actual fucking bomb, but he apologized to the firemen and defused it himself, despite their protests. He only escaped expulsion because he was apparently 'an angel', as Keith had overheard several times. 

A whole week passed before Keith got to (went out of his way to) see Lance do cheerleader rehearsals while Keith was conscious of Lance's existence. 

Keith was not prepared. 

* * *

Lance tosses a last goodbye to Shay, and then she leaves for the lockers and Lance is the last person on the field. He takes his time. There's no hurry. He does his stretches, he finishes his sports drink, he towels some of his sweat off and turns around to take a deep breath and-- 

"Keith!?" There he is, sitting up in the bleachers, looking like a deer caught in headlights. 

"Um," Keith says. "I--"

"You came to watch me practice?" Lance's mouth says without the approval of his brain. That is such an egoistical thing to say, the exact kind of thing Pidge would roll their eyes at, the kind of thing that gets Lance laughed at when it inevitably turns out he's wrong--

"How did you know?" Keith asks indignantly. 

"What," Lance recovers oh so smoothly while he's internally screaming, "did you come to admire the goal posts?" 

"I wasn't admiring you!" Keith says, and Lance notices that he's bright red. 

"I didn't say you were! What are you talking about!?" 

"Shut up!" Keith says, and then angrily walks off in a huff. 

Later that night, Lance will be so embarrassed at the stupidity of that conversation. At the moment though, he's just wondering how long Keith had been there, and what he'd thought of Lance. 

 

Lance had already been conscious of Keith, but now he _really_ pays attention to him, and he does it with new information in mind. He notices him in the cafeteria. He's there just long enough to get some food, and then he broodily fucks off like he's too good for all of them. Lance has already noticed, and muttered, about this before. This time though, he wonders if the dork who sincerely said that he doesn't snort weed and vomits when he has to play in front of a crowd doesn't eat in the cafeteria just because... he doesn't like crowds. It's a really stunningly simple answer that's so obvious that it makes Lance feel like an asshole for having assumed that first thing earlier. 

Lance makes sure to pay some attention to him in class as well in between desperately trying to pay attention to what he's actually supposed to focus on (CLASS WORK), and this time instead of just glaring at his mullet and making snide remarks about it under his breath, he focuses on what Keith does instead of how he looks, which is a mindblowing new concept to his subconcious. Lance may have grown slightly judgey lately. 

Keith works hard, with an ease that makes Lance jealous. Keith stares broodingly out of the window, which exasperates him. Keith idly doodles in his notebook, which... _endears_ him to Lance. 

After this discovery, Lance goes back to hopelessely trying to focus on what he's acutally supposed to focus on. 

 

Lance watches Keith practice. He's watched the team practice before seeing as Nyma, his Junior year crush, had been on the team before graduating last spring, after all. But this time instead of focusing on her he focuses on _him_. Keith hadn't even been on the team the last time Lance had really paid attention to the football team. 

Keith, as it turns out, is a motherfucking whirlwind. 

He runs and dodges around his opponents like he's actually got peripheral vision in that clunky helmet of his, and he continues on and on like he isn't getting tired at all. Lance isn't sure, as he's always been more wrapped up in his splits during games than the team's touch downs, but he thinks Keith might actually be performing better in practice than he does at actual games. Performance anxiety?

Lance watches Keith take off his helmet, his stupid mullet all ruffled and sweaty, and the sudden inexplicable embarrasment he feels at the sight breaks him out of his trance. He realizes that he's been sitting here freezing his ass off on the bleachers watching Keith play for _two full hours_ , instead of the mere ten minutes he'd intended to stop by. His stomach calls out for his mother's homemade cooking. 

Lance shuffles off, deeply mortified over how stupid he's acting. 

 

"So," Pidge says grimly, like they're prophesying the world's doom "It's finally happening." 

"What's happening?" Hunk asks through a mouth full of food. Gross. 

"Lance is staring at Keith a lot lately," Pidge explained themself. 

"What!?" Lance yelped. "That's not--"

"Yeah, he's right, Pidge," beautiful, beautiful Hunk came to his defense. "What's so special about that?" 

Lance takes it all back. Hunk is ugly as sin. 

"Well, note that I said _staring_ instead of glaring." 

"Oh!" Hunk said. 

"That's right," Pidge said gloomily, nodding. "The one sided sexual tension is finally turning into... even more potent sexual tension." At this they groaned and slumped forward on the cafeteria table, banging their head against it. 

Lance was choking on too much indignation to angrily defend himself. But, oh, they just had to wait a few minutes and then they'd see! He furiously took a bite out of his sandwich. 

As Keith got his food, he turned his head around like he was looking for something. His eyes landed on Lance and he looked hard at him for exactly five seconds before turning around and walking out of the cafeteria as usual. 

"... Maybe not so one sided after all," Hunk said. 

Lance actually needed the Heimlich manuever after that. 

* * *

Keith does not have a crush on Lance McClain, head cheerleader of his school. 

Each time he tells Shiro this, he very clearly believes him a little less. Keith wish he could say it wasn't the same for himself as well. It may have something to do with how much he blushes while he says it. 

He manages to mostly avoid Lance (lies. His eyes keep darting to him in class and in the hallways and in the cafeteria and out in the parking lot, and worst of all, he still goes to see him train with his team, his traitorous reddening face hopefully not looking too strange thanks to the cold) for a few more weeks, but another match is coming up. Which means last minute rehearsals to make sure they're _perfect_. Last minute rehearsals at the _same time as the cheerleaders_ , because that's how it'll be during the game. 

Keith hopes to god that he'll be able to adequately perform while knowing his maybe-crush is at his back doing backflips. He supposes this is chance to see if he can. 

* * *

Lance is going to rehearse at the same time as Keith.

He has butterflies in his stomach. He's done this before, multiple times, never spared Keith a single thought as he arranged himself in a human pyramid.

His head's in the clouds. Maybe Keith will look at him, be impressed. Keith is not going to look over. Keith has razor sharp focus for the ball and the ball only when it's show time. 

Lance is so-- 

Lance is going to fucking _own_ this rehearsal. 

(Whether Keith watches him or not.) 

 

Lance wishes Keith luck at the game. 

* * *

The ball flies. The players fly into action.

Keith. Gets. His. Head. In. The. Game. 

He's ruthless, fast (it has to be just his imagination that he can hear the rustling of pom poms from where he is), and scores the first goal quickly enough that he gets to see Lance get caught by the hands of his waiting team. There's something very much like satisfaction glowing warmly in his chest at this. 

 

It's a week later, and the game is happening. Keith's in position, repeating Shiro's mantra in his head, trying to drown out the wall of noise of the crowd, and a corner of his mind, all on its own, decides to latch onto the cheerleader's cries, as if its comforting now. It is kind of nice, in a repetetive sort of way. It helps a bit. 

It helps even more to give himself the reward of shooting a quick glance at Lance and his team every time he scores a goal. 

* * *

 

The crowd is a sheer wall of noise, intoxicatingly overwhelming. As Lance is thrown spinning into the air with seemingly careless abandon by his team it peaks, and he can't make out any one single word, but they might as well all be saying ' _Lance, Lance, he's looking at you, LANCE_.' 

Because he is. Looking at him. Lance caught him shooting glances during the very brief moments it was safe for him to split his focus from what he's doing. He's sure of it. It's intoxicating, knowing he has some of Keith's attention even at a moment like this. It's as (or possibly even more than) intoxicating as the crowd's roar. 

They win, of course. 

Their cheersquad was better than the rival school's, too. 

 

After the game, Lance finds Keith behind his car again and holds back his stupidcute mullet and strokes his back, muttering comforting Spanish nonsense into his ear the way he does for his little sister when she's sick. Despite this, or perhaps because of this, Keith doesn't actually vomit this time. He doesn't look great, but he looks better than last time. 

Looks like Lance wore his cheap shoes tonight for no good reason. 

Lance still drives him home. 

And at Keith's driveway Lance

kisses him

* * *

The head cheerleader and star quarterback. Honestly, they're such a cliche. 

 

 

 

 


End file.
